NaNoWriMo 2015

It’s here!! Oh my goodness! I can’t believe how quickly November came around. I admit that I planned on waking up quite early this morning to begin my noveling but after walking around town last night for hours with my husband and little ones trick or treating, and thinking about my novel, I decided to sleep in a bit. 🙂

Now that I’m refreshed, it was time to bring out the big guns! 🙂 In other words, nanowrimo tools that serve to be quite useful during the month of literary abandon.

I went ahead and purchased “No Plot? No Problem by the founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, as well as Ready, Set, Novel!. I immediately dove into these books when they arrived at my door two weeks ago. “No Plot? No Problem” walks you through each week of nano and guides you through literary awesomeness! There are major tips and tricks that prove successful in hitting that 50k goal at the end of November. “Ready, Set, Novel!” is a writer’s workbook that helps release all the nonsensical junk flying around in your mind and helps narrow down some important ideas that will help you with character development, getting scenes down, and simple and effective activities that will get your novel going. Very important, be sure to BACK UP YOUR WORK! I can’t stress this enough. Especially being a victim of being hacked and losing work. You never know when your computer might just lash out at you and, I dunno, blow up?! Don’t fret wrimos! Purchase this nifty little USB bracelet, “Time To Write”.

Don’t forget to gear up with a comfy sweater that will keep you warm through the month while you’re typing away! I absolutely love it and it serves as a pretty great motivational shield :).

Now, many of you may think that attempting to write 50k in a month is madness? And so what if it is? It’s genius and madness all in the same and it gives me such a sense of accomplishment in even participating. This is simply a way to get writing on a daily basis. I explained everything in a previous post when I participated in Camp nano.

I have a lot of great tips on staying healthy throughout your writing process. Yes, snacking, hydrating, and simply eating properly is a must! Our creative minds will shut down if we don’t give our bodies what it needs to continue that chapter about the really hot guy who finally gets the girl.

So, try not to over do it on the Halloween candy and grab an apple, carrots and hummus, or my fave, guacamole. Making healthy smoothies/shakes is my fave. If you would like to check out some of my favorite recipes, you can go here and for my daily shakes for complete dense nutrition, you can check it out here. Be sure to drink a lot of water! It’s so easy to get lost in our other worlds that we forget to hydrate. The key here is to have simple, healthy, and accessible snacks while you’re typing away.

And who could forget the caffeine? 😉

Coffee is a must throughout this month. There will be late nights, early mornings, in between hours of, “Wait, where am I?”. Coffee will be needed in order to get through it all.

So, we’ve covered some of the tools but what about the community? Nanowrimo has a massive community in which support each other through the entire process. There are forums that are filled with yummy goodness to fuel our tinkering thoughts. So, take flight into those forums and get to know other writers who have taken the plunge in getting their novel down in one month right along side you and hundreds of thousands of others. There are also writing sprints on Twitter that are very useful. Be sure to look up what events are happening in your region on the site! There are writers who get together at local spots for write-ins. It’s a great way to hang out with people who completely understand your “50k in thirty days” journey and slam out a few thousand words :).

Some really important advice I have when meeting this word count is, DO NOT EDIT!! Let’s be real here wrimos, meeting 50k is not an easy task, for those of you who do find this a breeze, right on! However, we tend to want to hit that delete button whenever we hit a line that doesn’t quite fit. Well, I’m here to tell you that there’s no need for that right now! This is the one time you do not want to start deleting words that lead into sentences, paragraphs, and before you know it, you’re about five thousand words behind. So, you don’t really like that last line? No worries, edit later!! The point is to continue until the end. Keep writing to the finish line and wait until December, or January to start the editing process, and enjoy the bragging rights that come with slaying 50k in one of the busiest months of the year. Oh, and there are prizes to be won as well!!

So, you see you are not alone in the madness. If you’ve thought about it but didn’t know when or how to begin, just visit the NaNoWriMo website and get started! You will make long life long friendships, have lots of fun, and hey, you might even write a novel. 🙂

If you are participating this year, please add me and we can hold each other accountable throughout the month! 🙂